The present invention relates to endoscopic attachments to a surgical laser.
Surgical lasers are now gaining increasing use for performing various types of surgical operations Among their many advantages are their ability to make very clean, fine cuts while minimizing damage to tissue outside the cutting line; and also their ability to readily coagulate the blood in capillaries, small veins and arteries, thereby minimizing loss of blood and keeping the wound area clean. One example of a surgical laser with respect to which the present invention is particularly useful is described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,913,582. Various types of attachments have also been devised to enhance the use of surgical lasers, some of these attachments being described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,865,113 and 3,865,114. Surgical lasers, however, have not yet been widely used with endoscopic attachments having long and small-diameter endoscopic tubes, because of the difficulty of directing the laser beams through such long and small-diameter tubes.